Communication Studies at Hamline
The
communication studies major involves students in critical inquiry and informed
practice. Because communication pervades all human enterprise, communication
professionals have a special responsibility to create and analyze messages with
critical attention to the processes that shape them, the information that
supports them, the arguments that are made, and the effects messages produce.
Communication is central to our personal and social lives, enables us to
participate meaningfully in civic life, and good communication skills are
valued highly by employers. Whether the messages are verbal or nonverbal,
face-to-face or mediated, private or public, as a communication studies student
you will be challenged to create, describe, analyze, explain, and evaluate them
as a knowledgeable communicator. Communication studies will help you develop
your ability to:
- Analyze
communication interaction processes,
- Analyze the
interaction between diversity and communication,
- Evaluate the
effects of communication in various contexts,
- Critique
rhetorical acts,
- Formulate
questions related to communication problems and devise ways to answer
those questions, and
- Develop your own
communicative competence.